


The heirs of the grim reaper

by Borealis_Strange



Category: Original Work
Genre: Deaf Character, Gen, Grim Reapers, Horror, Original Character(s), ghost - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28350426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Borealis_Strange/pseuds/Borealis_Strange
Summary: Vitalina is a 15 year old girl who was born with the ability to see and to communicate with ghosts. She likes to explore abandoned houses and "hunt" ghosts. But she isn't alone, Aiden, the spirit of her cousin, is always with her, making sure she doesn't get hurt.





	The heirs of the grim reaper

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this back in October but until now I had the courage to post it.
> 
> There are going to be two chapters of this story only. Mainly because I don’t know what direction I want to take with this. Maybe later I'll post more chapters, who knows?
> 
> But tell me, do you’ll like it? Should I post more original stories?

-Well you've already appreciated it enough. Now let's go home- Aiden spoke in his husky voice.

Aiden tried to go away a bit but I took him by the hoodie so he wouldn't stray too far.

"We can't go home" I told him "We haven't explored it yet!"

We were both outside an old house in the city.

-I'm not interested. I do not want to die or see ghosts - Aiden said annoyed, marking his Spanish accent even more.

"You can't die" I reminded him without looking away from the house "You're already dead"

Unfortunately, it was true. Aiden had died when he was only 19 years old and before I was born. They were strange circumstances and not even he remembered very well what had happened, more than fleeting memories.

-I know but a ghost can still hurt me -

I decided to ignore him. This always happened. Every time I wanted to explore a little Aiden would constantly complain and he couldn't allow me to do that to me because "His duty was to take care of me." I don't know how true that was; maybe he just wanted to keep me from getting in trouble or hurting me.

Aiden was still complaining when I began to climb the fence that separated us from the house.

-Where are you going? -

I did not answer. I just jumped off the fence to finally be in the yard.

-Vitalina!- Aiden yelled from the other side of the rusted metal fence.

I walked slowly through the main garden of the house. It looked abandoned. Broken glass, worn walls, and a swollen wooden door. The grass was so long that it reached up to my waist; I had to tread carefully so as not to trip over abandoned bricks from those poorly façade walls.

I walked through the porch of the house toward the door. I turned the knob and tried to open it, but it was so swollen with moisture that it didn't budge a bit.

-Too bad we can't get in - Aiden commented sarcastically. - Well, let's go. - And began to float away slowly.

I had walked too much, climbed a fence, and generally tried too hard to just walk away. Besides that the curiosity that everything that was said about this house had generated in me won me over. I pulled up and hit the door with all my weight, hoping it would open, and after a couple of tries I managed to do it. I smiled to myself. As I felt how Aiden put on the same frustrated face that he always did when I achieved my goal and he was dragged by me into a possible problem, again.

I carefully entered the house and left the door ajar behind me, fearing that I would not be able to reopen it.

As soon as I walked in, the first thing I noticed was the pungent musty aroma, it was incredibly strong. The furniture in the living room was cluttered and thrown as if someone had fought inside, quite a violent fight. There were plants crawling through the swollen wooden slab of the floor and moss growing on the walls.

I walked across the room seeing the terrible state of things in there. Books, paintings, furniture, everything spoiled. I kept walking towards the kitchen and walked over to a display case next to the dining room. Inside were some china sets that were immaculate, somewhat strange considering the state of the rest of the house. The most they had was some dust, but other than that they were intact.

-Vitalina, I don't know what you want to get to with this, get out of there and let's go home please, an animal or something is going to come out for you. - Said Aiden, notoriously nervous.

-Come on, it's fun to explore, you better come check out the amazing china here. Hopefully they are even collectible. - I replied to Aiden, who was looking at me worriedly from the door.

-Come on Vida, I don't have a good feeling about this place-

-It's just your nervousness, Aiden. Come, let's go to the warehouse to see what there is. -

I peeked through a door that was between the kitchen and a hallway. I opened it and to my surprise it opened without the greatest care. Making an irritating (and creepy if I may say so) screeching, you know, typical of haunted houses. When the door opened, I noticed that it was a narrow corridor, with some stairs of which I only saw 3 or 4 wooden steps leading to total darkness. A switch and a light bulb hanging from the low ceiling just above my head. I was pondering whether to come down or not, leaning in, when I heard Aiden from the living room.

-Vitalina! You are not thinking of going down to an abandoned warehouse in total darkness of the most haunted house in the area, are you? You know that someone can hurt us, right?

Exploring houses was a strange hobby I had had since Iwas twelve. And from the first time I did it Aiden always tried to stop me for fear that he would hurt me. He was partly right, going to an abandoned house was not the safest thing in the world, I usually chose the ones that had a story behind them, the ones that everyone rumored voices were heard; I chose where there were ghosts.

Another reason I liked doing this was because of the history behind these houses. Many times they had antique furniture, books and all kinds of things that one could not imagine, and despite explaining thousands of times and assuring him that everything would be fine, Aiden always insisted that he not do it because it would get me in trouble. I could be right, but I always ignored it because nothing ever happened to me.

I was standing in front of those wooden steps and that threatening darkness. I checked the switch next to me, but it didn't turn the light bulb on. After my vision adjusted a bit to the darkness, I managed to make out an old oil lamp on a ledge almost above my head, along with its respective spare oil. Luckily, I remembered that I had seen a box of matches in the trench cabinet where the dishes were, so I went to get them, leaving the lamp on the shelf again.

Aiden watched me as he walked back to the kitchen.

-Did you already regret doing this? - Aiden said slightly mockingly, waiting for the opportunity to boast of always having been right, but deep down he hoped that he would answer yes to leave without risk.

-No. I actually came to find something to help me down, and you will come with me. Or well, you can stay in the living room and wait for a ghost to come out. After all, we don't know what we can find around here ... - I said lighting a match to see if they still worked so that we could light the lamp.

The match lit, emitting a small flame of fire that danced with my breath. The match being old was a bit longer, so I walked back to the warehouse covering the flame so it wouldn't go out. I lowered the lamp from the mantel and turned it on, all this while Aiden looked at me concerned, nothing different than usual, although this time I noticed that his concern was slightly greater. Maybe it was just that this was a considerably different situation because most likely that place was guarded by some ghost, one that may not be quite good.

-Come on, Aiden, let's get down. -

-You can not be serious. -

-Do you want to see I am? - I said, starting to go down the stairs that creaked with every step I took.

-Well, I'll go, but if there's a ghost, don't say I didn't warn you.

We started going down the stairs and it seemed eternal, but I counted about 17 steps.

As we went down, Aiden reminded me of all the legends that had been told of that supposedly haunted house, since he used to be part of those who told those stories. That the old man lived there in the 1920s, and was a bitter old man who did not allow even daylight or fresh air, but the few times he was seen outside, it was narrated that he had a grotesque and unkempt: Covered with layers of clothing and the scent of sweat; with thin, graying and battered hair, and bulging yellow eyes. Around his isolation and strange appearance, legends began to be generated around him, that he was a very eccentric collector, or he was a kind of child-eater and roamed the streets at night looking for victims. In my opinion, he surely was just a sturdy and bitter man who avoided contact with other human beings at all costs for sheer comfort.

We finally reached the basement, so dark and icy that I was sure the little lamp would go out at any moment, although it was lighting better than I thought, but still it was not enough, since the room looked huge. Once my eyes adjusted a little better, I began to move around the room. I pointed the flashlight at a wooden beam in the ceiling, which looked full of small lumps. Suddenly, a group of bats spread their wings and flew off into another dark corner. Wow, this basement was quite an ecosystem.

I pointed the lamp elsewhere in the dim room and could only glimpse a few shelves with empty glass jars and other shelves and furniture covered in dusty sheets. Well, it was somewhat gloomy, but my desire to know what would be under those blankets got the better of me and I started to get closer making the wooden planks under my feet creak.

I finally got there, and as I carefully tugged on the sheet I was horrified and Aiden looked paler than he already was. The shelves were crammed with jars labeled in minute handwriting and filled with liquid with human organs floating in them. We uncovered each of the covered furniture and they all had the same. We were horrified watching the scene when a gust of icy wind assaulted us accompanied by a shiver and an awful deep, hoarse voice telling us: You shouldn't have come here.

Aiden and I turned and froze. A horrendous specter, which perfectly fit the description of the urban legends about the man who used to live there, only about 10 times more horrifying. Huge, greenish, hunchbacked, sloppy looking, and drooling ectoplasm, stood a specter that was undeniably evil.

The ghost threw his hand out to catch us, but we jumped and Aiden yelled "run!" while he floated in terror. We began to run avoiding obstacles guiding us with the remaining light of the lamp towards the stairs.

The ghost was chasing us as we started up the stairs. On the run, I tripped and one of my hearing aids fell to the ground. I hurried back to pick it up (and praying nothing happened to it) Aiden tried to outwit the ghost. I got up and we kept running towards the door. We opened the basement door, ran through the kitchen, and as we were about to reach the living room where the front door was, the ghost got in the way of the door that Aiden had left ajar, but the wind just opened it all the way. I managed to slip under the ghost, ran through the main garden and managed to escape through an opening in the metal fence that we did not see from the outside, but Aiden did not have the same reflexes, so he slammed into the ghost on his first attempt to run and then slipped down just like me. Filled with greenish ectoplasm, he floated over the garden quickly with the ghost following him and flew over the fence. From the other side of the sidewalk, we saw how the ghost could not get past the metal fence. It was as if some force field stopped him.

I couldn't help but laugh out loud once the danger was over.

-What are you laughing at !? - Aiden yelled, regaining his composure after the tremendous shock that we both had.

-Well, you are ... Green and slimy! - I said laughing even more.

-You can't perceive it, but this smells awful. - Aiden said annoyed

-That makes it even funnier. -

-Well, stop laughing and let's go home. If I remember correctly, your mother had said that she wanted to see you.

We walked back to the house, and I couldn't look at Aiden for more than three seconds without starting to laugh again, because his bitter face matched the green slime soaked in his clothes and hair. I preferred to keep my composure, since whoever saw me would think I'm crazy for laughing out of nowhere.

We finally arrived and I went into my house being careful not to make too much noise. It wasn't especially late, it was just getting dark, but still I had been scolded long enough to always be careful.

My mother was in the living room, reading the newspaper. As soon as she heard me she got up and walked towards me, apparently, she was waiting for me.

-I'm glad you came back - My mother pointed out with soft gestures - You have to see the things in the cellar, you've already put it off for a long time and I really need you to check it.

I looked away. I had been avoiding that at all costs. It had been almost a year since my grandmother passed away and it seemed like a few days ago. In the cellar were the things that she had kept for me. To no one's surprise, I was my grandmother's favorite, which is why several of her cousins disliked me, and that meant keeping her most special belongings for her. It wasn't anything of great value, just things that she had collected over the years that carried great sentimental weight. In part I knew why I had to keep them: we both shared the same "ghostly" abilities. But even so I flatly refused to review them.

My mother took me by the shoulder to get my attention back.

-I know this is difficult,-she signed out, trying to comfort me.- But you have to. Even though Grandma is no longer here with us, you know that all her love stayed with you, baby, and part of it is in having left you all those belongings that were important to her. She will always be with you,Vida. You know it right?

I nodded slightly and blinked quickly to keep the tears that were forming from falling onto my cheeks. My mother hugged me. We last like this for a few seconds before we part.

"I’ll do it" I signed slowly.

My mother smiled at me and let me go.

-Are you sure you're ready for this? -Aiden asked, floating behind me.

"When will I be?" I told her as we headed to the backyard.

I climbed the metal stairs to get to the cellar. I sighed deeply before entering.

The cellar was the size of a small room, crammed with boxes that obscured the walls. It had a strong dusty smell that made my stomach turn. This was where they kept the Christmas decorations and all the things that my mother did not want in the house, mainly things from my father that I never knew where he got them from. There were also a couple of things from my older brother, Ricardo, that he had left at home when he left the town to study but never came back for them.

It was easy to identify where my grandmother's things were, it stood out a lot. It was a rather large and heavy wooden chest, with metal edges, engraved with the initials “L. V ".  
I approached the chest and sat in front of it, still not wanting to open it. This chest was owned by my grandmother for as long as I can remember; I remember that when I was a child she always showed me all the wonders that were in there, from little glass figurines to old books that she used to read to me before bed.

Finally I plucked up my courage and opened the chest.

At the top were two cards and a faded blue blanket that covered the rest of the contents. I put the letters aside and moved the blanket to see what else was inside.

-Are you not going to read it?- Aiden said as he took one of the letters. - He says it's for you -

"I'm not ready yet" I said.

Aiden didn't insist further for which I silently thanked him.

Inside the chest were several neatly organized small boxes, old books and other items covered with cloth to protect them.

I took one of the boxes and inspected its interior. I took one of the boxes and inspected its interior. It had several colored marbles that reminded me of a galaxy. I set them aside and continued exploring the contents of the chest.

I continued to investigate the inside of the chest. Old books, some manuscripts, more photos, some beautiful embroidery and other curiosities, such as a peculiar wax seal and small boxes with funny items inside.

-Hey-Aiden got my attention-I think you should read this-he said as he handed me one of the letters.

The envelope was yellowish and had a red wax seal on it. On the back it said:

“For Vitalina Steklov Romero.  
By Mirabella Strange  
Open as soon as it is received "

I remembered this letter. It had been given to me by my grandmother before she passed away. I never opened it, obviously, because I didn't want to read what was inside. I hadn't even seen the back because I assumed she wrote it. After a year I found out that it was from a complete stranger.

I broke the seal and took out the letter. It was completely blank.  
I looked at Aiden confused as if he had the answer but he was the same or more confused than me.

Suddenly, a lot of letters began to be written on the old paper at a speed that made them unreadable. They filled the paper from both sides and kept popping up, to the point that it looked like the paper was going to explode. They began to shoot forward in spurts, the paper began to heat up rapidly, and out of nowhere the letter began to burn in green flames. Instinctively I released it and took a few steps back until I hit the wall. Aiden was just as scared as I was.

What started out as a small green flame began to spread.

The flames intensified without burning anything and a whirlwind of letters began to form a female figure. Tall, incredibly thin and with remarkable elegance. Her features were defined, but as the fire intensified, they became more and more marked. Finally, the flames spun rapidly, formed a cocoon and disappeared, leaving green glows in the air and a woman standing on the letter paper on the ground. Without a doubt she was quite different from any woman I had seen, because although I am thin, she was at least 10 times thinner than me. She was… skeletal. Very elegant to wear, with a large hat and with many flowers, the gaze towards the floor, long black hair with flowers stuck in it, a tight and light Mexican pink dress with long sleeves with traditional embroidery. They were very much like the things my grandmother did. Finally when she lifted her face, her skeletal body made sense. A thin face, made of bone, that made it clear that she was the Grim reaper.

The woman when she saw me began to tell me something but the terror and the fact that my hearing aid was damaged by the fall that it suffered, I could not understand anything she told me. I managed to read her lips a couple of times but I couldn't concentrate.

The only thing I managed to grasp was: "I've been waiting for you" "You have to come with me" and something from the ... Underworld?

When the woman finished her impressive presentation, she looked at me for my answer. I thought about telling her that I was deaf and she hadn't gotten anything, but I preferred to just nod my head slowly pretending I knew she had told me.

She said something else with an angry face but this time I didn't understand anything. Fortunately Aiden was the one who spoke to her since I could not articulate a word.

-Excuse me, but my friend can't hear you - Aiden said with a slightly annoyed tone and his voice still shaky.

The woman's face changed to one of concern. She said something else to Aiden, without changing her worried face.

-Yes- Aiden answered a question -She can hear me perfectly.

The woman smiled in relief and Aiden began to recite what the woman was saying.

"Vitalina Steklov. I have been waiting for this meeting. I'm sorry for the sudden arrival but you were supposed to receive that letter a year ago. Let me introduce myself; I am Mirabella Strange better known as the grim reaper. I need you to come with me to the Underworld, immediately. "

Was I understanding her well? The grim reaper herself was looking for me.

-Why? - It was the only thing I managed to say.

-Didn't your grandmother tell you? - Aiden asked. I did not know if it was a question of him or of the Grim reaper.

I just shook my head in Aiden's direction.

-Vitalina, - Aiden repeated the words of Grim reaper - You were born with a very unique ability, the ability to see ghosts. Which makes you ... An heir of the grim reaper. -

Now I was more confused than before. It was obvious that I was special for seeing ghosts but I never thought I was an "heir of the grim reaper", whatever that means. And apparently my grandmother knew something about it but she had never told me. Did anyone else know this? Did my mother know or did she hide it? I had to talk with her.

-I know you are very confused - Aiden continued - But it is your duty to continue with your grandmother's legacy.

Her death offered me her hand to go with her to the Underworld. I took a step back, rejecting her offer.

-I can't leave - I said in a low voice - At least not yet -

Death looked at me with sad eyes and said something else that Aiden didn't repeat.

The envelope fell apart and the pieces of paper floated in the air, forming a whirlwind that engulfed Mirabella and finally disappeared, dropping the small pieces of paper all over the room.

As soon as death was gone, I quickly left the cellar and headed for the house.

-Where are you going? -Aiden asked, floating behind me.

-To my room, where else? - I answered annoyed.

I went into my room and threw myself on my bed. My head was spinning. Not knowing what to do. How come I didn't know about this? Did my family know anything about it?

-Are you alright? - Aiden asked.

-No, why would I be? I just found out something that is VERY significant in my life and that will change it completely, and worse, that my grandmother kept it from me all the time.

Suddenly I thought about it. If my grandmother knew it and she had kept it from me, maybe Aiden has always known it too.

-Did you know anything about it, Aiden? - I asked without seeing his face.

He was silent for a few seconds. He stuttered.

-Yes-he said almost in a whisper.

Deep down I expected it, but, what a stab.

And why the hell didn't you tell me? - I said hurt, almost crying.

Aiden sighed moving slightly closer to me, to which I ducked away on the bed.

-I couldn't -He said heavily-It was a ... secret -his tone of voice denoted guilt.

-How can you keep something like that a secret? And why me, Aiden? - I started crying.

-I couldn't say it as much as I wanted to. I promised. Sorry, Vida. -

I wanted to hit Aiden right then but unfortunately I couldn't.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are well appreciated!!!
> 
> Tumblr: borealis-strange


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